First Day of Class - The Insa and other Korean Culturalnormative items of note

Yesterday was the first day of class, and it was immersive. We walked in, insa-ed the teacher as we had been taught (i.e. by stopping in the doorway, performing a full 90-degree bow, and saying, *an-nyeong-ha-se-yo*), and she began to speak to us in Korean. Since she is our written language teacher, occassionally she would speak a word of English here or there, but for the most part, she just spoke Korean at us and used hand gestures to get across meaning. This was sometimes frustrating, especially for some of the Fulbrighters who didn't realize that this IS an imersion program, but we managed, mostly because we were just reviewing the alphabet (hanguel) yesterday.

For those who don't know, Hanguel is a phonetic written language system consisting of 24 characters (10 vowels, or mo-eum, and 14 consonants, ja-eum). These are arranged in ideographic boxes that are read left to right, top to bottom. For instance, my name in Hanguel is 제레미 (Jeremy), and ㅈis a consonant and ㅔ acts as a vowel (it is actually a double vowel) in the first character box. This gets more complicated in a word like 안녕하세요 (an-nyeong-ha-se-yo), where ideographs can have 3 characters in them, and I have already seen up to four characters in a single box, though I think that's the max. Not that I really expect you to learn Hanguel from this paragraph, but I just wanted you to know how different it was.

So that was two hours of class. Repetition of the vowel and consonant sounds, trying our best to distinguish between the very similar "o" sounds in the language, etc. (My Greek has actually helped a tremendous amount in distinguishing between these, because often the sounds are very similar to the difference between the omicron and the omega. Thank you, Professor K.!) For homework? More repetition (very Kierkegaardian of us) in the form of a workbook in which we were to rewrite all the vowels and consonants several times. The workbook, incidentally, was a gift from the teacher. It is a gift giving culture, but I guess that doesn't mean that the gifts can't come with some responsibility.

Our second two hours were spent on learning basic Korean conversation. Yesterday's lesson specifically dealt with a full insa, which I suppose can include all of the introductory conversation one might have (i.e. Hello, my name is _____. I am an American from St. Louis. Pleasure to meet you.). This teacher *never* spoke English, and we were expected to parrot back whatever she said to us. Perhaps it is because I have an undiscerning ear for the language at this point, but I swear the careful pronunciation we had practiced in the previous class went out the window in the second class! Ah, well. I suppose there will be exceptions to the rule. Homework for this class (as I understand it, she was speaking Korean after all) is to be able to introduce ourselves in Korean to the class today. I will butcher the Korean, but I'm sure I'll survive.

(As I write, a pack of wild dogs has started a cacophany outside my window. My guidebook Fulbright supplied me with says, "KOREA - Where Old Meets New". I certainly sounds like it right now.)

After lunch, it was more class, this time a cultural primer. We learned many of the customs and etiquette we will need to know to not make the situation awkward for our host country (e.g. how to work withing the social hierarchy politely--still very Confucian here, when to pay, when to "fake" refuse, when to really refuse, when to give gifts, how to give gifts), and I imagine I'll hit on the specific of these when those events come up during my homestay. We also learned a bit about Korean history (though it would only amount to an unsatisfying paragraph, at most a page, in a history textbook) and how that effects current culture. For instance, within living memory, people were starving to death in Korea, so a common way to say, "Hello," in Korea is to say, "Have you eaten?" Everything in Korea revolves around eating now, and we are to insist that we are full half way through the meal so that when we are actually full, they will let us go from the table. If we insist too late, i.e. when we are already full, then we will have to eat twice our capacity.

A more interesting cultural facet, however, was the idea of *nunchi* (눈치) and *kibun* (기분). Nunchi is the knack one has (or conceivably doesn't have, probably in my case) for understanding the implicit undertones of a situation and following them. For example, if everyone in the house takes off their shoes before they enter, then the American guest with good nunchi will observe this and follow suit. This creates good kibun, or the atmosphere of good feeling that is shared by the group. Group mentality in Korea is VERY important to understand. Even if one doesn't follow it, they have to know how to not interfere with it. For instance, it's ok for me not to bow in some situations, to wave instead, but I have to know when it won't interfere with the kibun. If I interfere with this, I stand the chance of making everyone uncomfortable.

That's it for today. 안녕히 계세요.

Culinary note: I had a delightful dish called dakgalbi (닥갈비). This was a chicken dish served with cabbage and spicy paste (as most Korean food is), the spiciest I'd had. It also had ddok (떡) in it or rice cakes, which do not look like rice cake at all, really. They were small and cylindrical and had a smooth texture, as if the rice had been ground into paste before cooking. All of this was thrown into a large skillet that sat on the table, and the cook would occassionally come by and stir it until done, at which point we all ate from the skillet with metal chopsticks. (One of my friends in the states commented upon his discovering this that this must be the most uncomfortable experience in the world. I can assure him, it is not. The chopsticks never got hot.) The chicken and vegetables can be wrapped in a lettuce or spearmint leaf, and this is the only time when it is appropriate to eat with one's hands. Chuncheon, where I am living, is famous for its dakgalbi apparently, and I can tell why. The chicken was tender, the vegetables crunchy, and flavor had sufficient kick to get a slight exclamation from me. Dakgalbi is often referred to as Korean BBQ, and it's more common form is made with beef, called simply galbi (갈비). The meal was accompanied by a couple of bottles of soju, full stomachs and good conversation.